We here at The Escapist liked Tribes: Ascend when it launched in 2012. It's a good thing too, because it's not getting any larger. Hi-Rez studios has confirmed that it's suspending work on the free-to-play shooter as it focuses on other titles, like its new MOBA, SMITE.

It started with a post on the Tribes: Ascend subreddit, with someone asking why the game hasn't received an update in a while. Hi-Rez Studio head Todd Harris responded back, confirming that "there are no major dev updates planned for Tribes: Ascend in the next six months."

In the meantime, Hi-Rez Studios will be focusing most of its attention on new projects. "For the next six months our primary development focus is SMITE," he said. "Beyond that it is [Global Agenda 2]. And beyond that a [Tribes: Ascend 2] would be more likely than a major update to [Tribes: Ascend]; but to be clear no devs are currently working toward TA2."

Harris made it clear that this doesn't mean the death of Tribes: Ascend, as there will still be bug fixes and the occasional new map. "We continue to support TA servers, online community events, tournaments with prizing, bringing Tribes to offline events like recent RTX and upcoming QuakeCon, and live-streaming." While he mentions the possibility of new maps, he makes it clear that they have no set time frame for release.

T:A went to shit as soon as open beta started. Hi-Rez have had no fucking clue what they're doing for a while. Not only is the support for their game terrible, they even break their own TOS by monitoring your computer for blacklisted software even when the game isn't running.

Well I don't know what you were expecting from Hi-Rez of all companies. Possibly one of the WORST companies I've ever seen. Unfortunately, they tend to get some of the best games to run into the ground.

The simple fact of the matter is that T:A lacks the modding environment necessary to sustain community interest beyond purely developer-based content. Tribes as a franchise is well known for its modding community, but even without that iconography it's still important to maintain.

The issue with the game was that it really didn't feel like a F2P game as much as a retail game. The pay wall just hindered the gameplay and made the total cost way too high, as well as the fact that some of the weapons and gear necessary for iconic classes were locked for a good amount of playtime. Ultimately I ended up playing it for about a month and then stopped.

It's so hard to find a decent analog of Unreal Tournament 2k4 these days. You'd think UT3 would have been it, but nope.

So instead of expanding their good FPS, or even adding modding support and better eSports tools and THEN calling it a day, they just kill it instantly and choose to focus on their dreadful MOBA instead.

yayforgiveaway:Great game, worst developer support ever. I hope they will sell the rights to someone else.

Yeah, if they'd actually gotten behind their game properly then we might've seen a breath of fresh air into competitive FPS, but the lack of proper support killed that hope long ago.

That's the problem: They didn't see it like a F2P MMO shooter. They basically took a retail game, distributed it for free, and then kept a lot of options behind a pay wall. They eventually added a full "retail version" that had all the unlocks already completed so people could jump in and use whatever they wanted. Unfortunately, even other purely retail games are getting more support than this gem.

Pedro The Hutt:So instead of expanding their good FPS, or even adding modding support and better eSports tools and THEN calling it a day, they just kill it instantly and choose to focus on their dreadful MOBA instead.

... yeah, pretty dumb idea.

Smite makes money, TA doesn't. If it did, it would be dreadful, like Smite.

The game never felt finished to me. If they're going to stick to a 'freemium' model and charge for shit they could at least have the courtesy to keep supporting it. If not they need to strip out a lot of the patyment models because players are going to get angry about paying for what is essentially a dead game.

These kind of microtransation models only work as long as update support keeps up. As soon as it's cit loose these games tend to sink like a stone. That type of design is geared towards a more MMO like environment of updates and items.

They should hand the game over to the community. Without their support it will die.